The Culture of Guilt

My attention has been focused on the ferry which went down this week in South Korea with 475 passengers aboard, including a big group of children on a field trip.   Agony exists all over and pain hovers relentlessly over the survivors.  They have found 179 survivors and are trying to get past the debris into the 4th level guest rooms to see if some have found air pockets of shelter.  The errant captain has been arrested for, among other things, abandoning the vessel.

My attention piqued when I heard a Japanese woman make the statement:  "We live in a culture of guilt".  What does that mean?   Yes, I am a parent and I know about 'guilt trips'".   But I searched for more about this.  Is this a cultural stigma?  I read that shame and guilt are two basic cultural reactions to criticism and misfortune and wrong-doing.  It is almost in-bred culturally.

Then I heard the sad news that the vice-principal of the high school whose students were on the trip with him had hanged himself on a tree --remorseful in his guilt that he could not save all of his students.

And I was sorry for his guilt and pain!